How Do Physicians Choose to Die?

A recent RadioLab podcast, titled The Bitter End, pointed out a large gap between what doctors do to save lives and what they would choose to be done to them when death is imminent. When you ask people how they’d like to die, most will say that they want to die quickly, painlessly, and peacefully. Yet most also say they would opt for interventions that would extend their lives.

But not physicians.The graph below shows the answers that physicians gave to the Johns Hopkins Precursors Study when asked if they would want various interventions at the bitter end. The only intervention that doctors overwhelmingly want is pain medication. In no other case do even 20% of the physicians say “yes.”

Via Duck Soup